Untouchable
by Perdyta
Summary: River has a bad day. Jayne is less than pleased with this. Written for the Fall Challenge at Rayne Shippers over on livejournal. My prompt was Wind.


**Untouchable**

The stars are expert secret keepers. As the River-girl soars among them, she knows this to be a fact. Smooth sailing may allow her to feel like she will one day reach them, but still they shimmer faintly from afar. They twinkle and shine with their hearts locked away tightly but stay far away. Too far away.

River is not an expert secret keeper. She is not a shiny ball of gas. She is the wind.

Expertly, she will rustle the leaves and make the black less still. With a newly acquired calm she can coax the trees into whispering when they would otherwise stay silent, but she could not touch the stars.

Zoe sits down beside her and stares into the fire as River watches the stars. River knows the woman wants silent companionship for the moment, and she will gladly grant that wish. It is winter for the tree is missing her leaves to keep her warm. Soon, however, the tree will know she is blooming. There there will be warmth once more.

But now River is silent and still. It is the correct time to be so.

One by one, Serenity's crew falls asleep outdoors. Some are uneasy with the change in scenery while others savor it.

River watches the fire die down. Her hands fidget at her sides. She can not still her mind. The coals glow against the dark and the red reminds River of Ms. Prism's mouth. The way she smiled and laughed before the lightning struck. Everyone had ducked for cover but River was mesmerized by the red flowing from a tiny hole in Ms. Prism's throat. Darker than her smirking lips.

They don't smirk anymore.

Jayne pulled her down to join the safe crowd, just as more guns fired and bullets stormed in. She remembers watching the glass explode. Sunlight was no longer strained behind dusty glass and poured into the dank brothel uninvited.

The memory was tainted by the smell of sex on Jayne. Husky and dirty. She pushed his hand away from her shoulder where it had laid protectively. She had felt his confusion and anger grow instantly, just as his erection had grown when Ms. Prism had first smiled at him.

If she let it, his anger would suffocate her.

Closing her eyes, River instead concentrated on the pair of men outside. The blond was laughing and his brain was full of monsters. First there were animals and then it was family. Finally, it was whoever turned him on the right way. The prince of death needed to be put down.

The darker one remained stoic. He worried about his children and hoped his involvement in the execution of Ms. Prism had ensured their safety with his boss, but he knew the truth just as River did.

She shuddered. And then she rose. Neither one expected her. No one ever did. As she shot the blond between the eyes, she felt Jayne rise to cover her and knew he would kill the dark one. Jabbing his shooting arm with her elbow, she was pleased to see the man was only shot in the arm.

"Gorramit, witch!" Jayne shouted at her but the man had run away and River was not interested in another disagreement at the office. Nor was she sorry. "Now he's gonna run back to Kiyoshi!"

In a moment, River saw him running home. His wife worried over the blood. His children were frightened. He packed their bags.

"No, he won't." She told him evenly and turned to her captain.

Simon was trying to stop the bleeding in Ms. Prism's neck and River was glad Kaylee was with Serenity and not here. She hated to see the rain.

"Rain, rain, go away." River muttered and ignored Jayne's look of bewilderment.

Captain Daddy was with Zoe discussing their next move in a loud and angry voice. Jayne was angry but he also felt sick. He had enjoyed Ms. Prism's smiles. And her sex. River listened to the house.

The building had once been a brothel, not unlike the Heard of Gold. However, it was empty now and had not been a business for decades. Why Ms. Prism had chosen this building was a mystery to all but River, and now it would be her tomb.

As she puts away her memories for the time being, River senses another one of Serenity's crew is awake. She turns onto her side and watches Jayne walk away from the fire. She feels his need to empty his bladder. Her movement causes him to glance over his shoulder at her and as their eyes make contact, she feels how angry he still is with her.

And it is not only for being the cause of his sore arm.

"Capn' said we're t'stay together," Jayne had said as he grabbed her arm. It was the second time he had willingly touched her that day. She remembers caring more about that than how dangerously the anger was bubbling within Jayne.

_Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble._

It was cold on this planet, autumn here. River shivered under Jayne's touch as the wind picked up. Blew her hair all around and she could hardly see.

"Your anger confuses me... I was under the impression that you would rather work alone. Hoped you trusted me by now to make the correct decisions."

Jayne would never get used to the girl talking like she wasn't so crazy and more like her brother, but then the girl would never get used to the grey speckled in Jayne's hair or the deep crow's feet nestled beside his eyes. A lot had happened in two years, but friendship was not one of them.

"Trust has nothin' to do with it. We have our orders." Jayne was near growling. He had not lot go of her arm.

It was true. After the death of Ms. Prism, Mal had chosen flight over fight. Today he wasn't interested in the fight. Not when the job was supposed to have been low risk. Not when a well known underground boss was sending thugs at his crew during a simple smuggling job. Not when he couldn't think straight.

_Why hadn't River known?_

She had heard the thought loud and clear from Mal and it had almost knocked her to the ground. The bitterness of it made her run harder and faster than the rest. She ran with the wind at her back and imagined that she was flying home. She reached the ship before the others and as her hands touched Serenity's humming exterior, she felt the sanity leak back in.

"I apologize," River whispered to the ship. She pretended the wind whistling across Serenity was her way of saying she understood. She pretended she was less insane then.

As the others jogged towards her, she pretended she was wiping sand from her face as she went inside. When she pretended these things it made it easier to be around them, but now she wanted to be no where near them.

_It's getting far too crowded in here._

Mal was unhappy when he told River to take them off the planet. He was unhappy when she informed him there was not enough gas to get back to Persephone. He was unhappy when they landed on the nearby planet Haven and had to revisit memories still raw.

He had put Jayne and River on firewood duty, River wondered if he was punishing her. River had informed the ape-man that she was leaving, to explore on her own which had ignited the anger of Jayne.

Suddenly, she saw the faces of the Shepard and Wash in his mind. She knew, then, that he was angry at her attempt to abandon him. She felt his fear of being left alone on this ghost planet.

"She is sorry. She could not see," River raised her free hand to rest on her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut tight. "Tried not to. Now she cannot unsee. Bodies and ghosts. Comprehension blew away in the wind. Can't see through the glass anymore. Everyone's on the other side and I let it get dusty in here."

Jayne shook her. Hard. "Knock it off, gorramit!"

She shut her mouth and looked up at him with wide eyes. Already she could feel the beginnings of a headache. All she wanted was for him to make it all be better. To keep shaking and then the insanity could bubble up and spill out until there was nothing left but the dust on the glass.

"Since when the hell do you get bad days anymore, huh?" Jayne asked her. When all she could do was shake her head, he pushed her away. He stormed off through the rubble and she suddenly longed for him to remember his fear of the solitude. She wanted his company when she had not before. Did that mean she was still crazy?

River has had enough of lying and so she stands instead. She reaches towards the stars and stretches her arms. A light breeze brushes her cheeks and she smiles crookedly against it.

Still cannot reach.

She picks up her blanket and wraps it around her shoulders before leaving the dying embers. It would be easy to find the path left by the ape-man, all she had to do was follow the trail of anger and there he would be at the end. Her growling pot of shiny at the end of an orange and red rainbow.

Only he is not there.

River scans the dark. There are piles of rubble on either side of her and she does not like the shapes they make in the dark. Especially when Jayne is supposed to be where he is not.

"Thought you feared the solitude." She says into the dark. After all this time, it still frightens her.

_They come out of the black. They come when you call._

The light breeze comes back and she smells a faint, familiar scent on it.

"Aint afraid of nothin'," Jayne says from where he stands behind her. She does not turn to face him even as he admits, "'cept maybe Reavers."

But she hears the unspoken, "and you" and it makes her feel queasy.

She wants to turn and make eye contact. It will make him uneasy, though. He is like a wild beast, you have to be able to read and know what every fidget and sigh means. Only then can you dream of reaching him.

River knows.

"Me too," she says over her shoulder. He walks to her and stands in front of her. He searches out her eyes and she wonders if that makes her the wild beast. "I am here now," she tells him, full of hope.

"What? You think that's supposed to make me feel shiny?" He asks, his tone is bratty and unkind. River wants Captain Daddy to put him in time out.

She points to her temple and smirks. "Mind readin' genius," she says.

Smirking is the wrong thing to do just yet. Her lips remind him of Ms. Prism's lips. Anger. Confusion.

"You loved her?" River whispers, feeling sick as she says it.

"No, moonbrain. Weren't nothin' like that." Jayne says without yelling at her to stop snooping in his head.

"You feel something more than anger," River tells him and plants her hand on his chest over where the hurt is. She wonders if she is speaking to make him feel better or her.

"Well it aint ever gonna feel nice seein' someone die when there musta been somethin' to stop it."

There is another feeling welling up inside Jayne and it confuses River. Suddenly, she sees as he sees in his mind.

He is running his thumb over Ms. Prism's smirking lips. Kisses her neck instead. Thinks of dinner time, watches River smile at Captain Daddy.

Never kisses on the mouth. Never found the right one.

"I should have been better," River says as she closes her eyes against the images in Jayne's head. "I should have known. Then you could have had the right one."

River is used to the tears but they startle Jayne.

"You have stars in your eyes, River girl." Is all he can say.

It makes her giggle.

"You sound like a moonbrain."

And then he kisses her.

It is unlike the shy boys from school who met lips with her for less than a second and then pulled away blushing. It is not the way Simon kisses Kaylee, full of happiness and sunshine.

It is red and orange and under the stars. The wind picks up and her hair flutters against his cheeks but he is not paying attention to that. He is separating River from every other woman in his world.

The girl smirks like Ms. Prism but Jayne knows she is not her.

The girl is River. Everyone else is just blown away in the wind compared to her.


End file.
